New Opportunity
by Dragon'sHost
Summary: The loss of her magic hits Chelia harder than she thought it would, but new opportunity waits just around the corner.


**This was a request from my tumblr that got super long. I don't write these two often, but I find them extremely cute so the words just overflowed, haha.**

 **I hope you enjoy it.**

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Of all people she had been expecting to find at her door, Wendy had not been one of them. The dragon slayer had left Lamia Scale for good, after all. And Fairy Tail was located so far away that it made regular visitation impractical. Unexpectedly seeing her good friend standing on her doorstep suffused the former mage's face with joy. "Wendy! What a surprise!"

"Hi Chelia," Wendy greeted her with a half-smile. "I'm sorry to drop in out of the blue like this… but can… can we talk? I need to tell you something important."

Although Chelia was certain that Wendy had not intended for it to come out that way, her friend's choice of words were incredibly anxiety-inducing. They were the sort of words that her parents had used to tell Chelia that her cousin would be coming to live with them, after the death of her own parents. It was the words Sherry had used to tell Chelia that she was striking out on her own with her friends. It was the words she'd also used when she'd moved out of the place they'd shared, and in with her fiancé, Ren. It was the words Wendy had used when she'd left Lamia Scale and returned to Fairy Tail.

The ache of her lost magic, an empty hole inside of her that had once overflowed, pressed heavily on her at those words coming from Wendy. Barely a week had passed since her decision to use Third Origin and while she didn't regret it for a second, it still left a wound inside of her that was refusing to heal.

But she still smiled at Wendy, stepping back to let her into her room, and told her, "Sure!" even as fear began to lift its head inside of her.

They sat down at Chelia's little table, Wendy quietly refusing an offer from Chelia for something to drink. Instead, the blue haired girl rested her hands on the table, fiddling her fingers with more focus than the task deserved.

Insecurities whispered in Chelia's ears, about how Wendy had come to break off their friendship now that Chelia had no more magic, no more connection to the sky dragon slayer. Chelia could no longer be one of the Sky Sisters with Wendy, not without sky magic in her veins. Or any magic at all.

She knew intellectually that Wendy wasn't the sort of person to care about something like that, but it was hard to be rational while the wound still bled and after enduring the increasingly visible discomfort of her guildmates as they tiptoed around her and her magicless self.

After what seemed like an eternity to Chelia – though in reality probably less than a couple of minutes – the pink haired girl ventured, "So what did you want to talk to me about?" She couldn't imagine what was of such great importance to Wendy to bring her all the way out to Lamia Scale, no matter how she wracked her brain. Especially to the point of rending Wendy so timid, when she'd always seemed so strong to Chelia.

Wendy jumped a little at being suddenly addressed, and she flushed at her inattentiveness. Her hands flew to her lap and remained there, clenched tightly. "Um!" she said, a little too loudly for the small space. Then she swallowed, and tried again in a much softer voice. "It's… it's about what happened. With Third Origin."

Bile rose in the back of Chelia's throat, the fear clogging her airways, the path where her strength had once flowed. "Y-yeah? What about it?" she managed to force past her tightening throat, after she reminded herself to breathe.

"I've been… I've been thinking. About what losing your magic means, and about what we went through together. I've been thinking really hard about it. And I was wondering… what your plans are."

The question caught Chelia unprepared, blindsiding her. "Er…" This was a question she'd been asked a few times already, by others in her guild. By Sherry. She'd had an answer for them, a logical sounding one. But Chelia couldn't seem to find that prepared response now, her mind wiped clean at hearing that same query from Wendy. And truth be told, she knew that it was because unlike the others, she couldn't lie to herself in front of Wendy. She couldn't tell her that she had a neat little plan for her future, couldn't tell her that everything would work out because love conquers all hardships. Chelia wasn't nearly naïve enough to believe that anyway, not after the things she'd seen, the things she'd survived. She still believed that love was the only thing worth everything, though. She couldn't abandon that – it was at the core of her soul, and the reason she'd given away her future so readily in Wendy's place and never resented her friend for the decision she'd made.

"I don't have a plan," Chelia confessed to Wendy, closing her eyes for a brief moment. With a small shake of her head, she opened them again and gazed into Wendy's warm ones. "It's only been a week or two, after all!" she said with false brightness, trying to prove to Wendy that she wasn't wallowing in the despair that she was. "I just need to give it a little time. I'm sure something will come to me."

She hoped it sounded more convincing to Wendy that it did to her own ears.

"Why do you ask?" Chelia prompted when the silence began to stretch between them once more.

"Well… I was wondering…" Wendy paused, trying to untangle her words. "You see, there's a healer that Fairy Tail uses sometimes. I think I've told you about her before."

Chelia nodded. "Yeah, I remember. She's… um… your mother…? Sort of?" she attempted to recall, the details fuzzy in her mind.

Wendy brightened at Chelia's foggy recollection, pleased that the other girl had remembered even that much. "She's from a parallel world. So she's both my mother and… not my mother. After all, she's human, unlike Grandeeny. Her name is Porlyusica."

Parallel world, was it? That was such a strange concept to Chelia. That there were other worlds out there where things were so vastly different, that a dragon might appear as a human. She wondered, briefly, if there was a world out there were she had not lost her magic, but swiftly discarded the thought as a dagger of pain shot through her chest.

"Anyway… this other world is called Edolas. I'm not sure I ever told you, but Edolas has one very big difference between it and Earthland," Wendy explained animatedly.

"What's the difference?" Chelia asked, wondering where Wendy was going with this.

"Edolas doesn't have any magic."

The statement caused Chelia to recoil inadvertently out of horror. "No magic?" she repeated back, stunned at the thought. "How… how do they _do_ anything?" Magic was such an integral part of Earthland, it was in all countries and all aspects of daily living. Which was part of the reason that Chelia was finding her own lack of it so disconcerting, and far more taxing than she'd ever thought possible.

"Okay, that's not quite it!" Wendy admitted sheepishly. "You see, they did _have_ magic there… but no one was born with it innately. Which is why a lot of bad things started happening when the magic began to run out, but I'll tell you all about that another day. What I came to tell you, is that Porlyusica is from there."

Wendy waited expectantly after saying that, her eyes shining brightly. Chelia, however, failed to see where she was trying to go with this. "I'm sorry," she confessed. "But I'm not following."

"Porlyusica can still practice healing here," Wendy explained. "Even without magic, she still has her potions and such. She's really, really good at it, too, and she's taught me a lot. She's done a lot of things that I can't hope to compete with, like making a prosthetic eye capable of sight."

"Wow," Chelia breathed. "That's amazing." It really was. To work with magical prosthetics without innate magic of one's own was unheard of. How would she even begin to test the results to make sure it worked before giving it to the patient? And there were other things that Wendy couldn't replicate as well, even with her sky dragon magic?

"I know I should have asked you first," Wendy told her, her expression turning bashful again. "But I actually went ahead and asked her if she might be willing to take on an apprentice. And she said yes. So… so if you want it… it's yours."

Tears welled up in Chelia's eyes. "You… you did that? For me?" She launched herself across the table, tackling a very surprised Wendy in a crushing hug. "Thank you, Wendy! Thank you so much!"

She wouldn't have to give up healing. She could move out, and live near or even with Wendy. She didn't have to give up on her future.

Love had never abandoned Chelia. It had brought her a new opportunity, and joy enough to chase away the lingering shadows in her heart.


End file.
